General Motors reported a steep slide in electric vehicle demand for the three months ending in September 2026, a slump heavy enough to weigh down the automaker’s results for the quarter and for the year so far. Federal buyers lost the federal EV purchase incentive roughly twelve months ago, and the resulting drop-off looks to have landed harder than GM itself was braced for.
Cadillac absorbed some of the sharpest hits within GM’s lineup, with the Escalade IQL and IQ together moving just 1,604 vehicle units. The Lyriq, on the other hand, lost half its volume outright, tumbling 50.2 percent to 3,617 deliveries, and the Vistiq gave up 34.1 percent to land at 2,587. Optiq proved the exception, slipping just 6.9% to 4,550 units, though the brand as a whole still finished the quarter 30% lighter at 32,650 vehicles.
Chevrolet’s numbers read even worse. The Blazer EV’s volume essentially evaporated, down 84.40% to a mere 1,261 deliveries, while the now-discontinued BrightDrop vans managed only 1,344 units, a 43.6% retreat.
Nothing in the lineup fell further than the company’s Equinox EV, which cratered 92.4%, shrinking from more than 25,000 deliveries a year prior to a paltry 1,905 this quarter and leaving its full-year count 65.6% below where it stood in 2025. The electrified Silverado held up only marginally better, losing 58% of its quarterly volume and finishing the first nine months of the year down 43.2%.
GMC’s electric offerings suffered a comparable retreat as combined Hummer EV SUV as well as Pickup deliveries sank 72.9%, while the Sierra EV lost just over half its volume, settling at 1,661 vehicle units. Those declines pulled the division’s overall sales 4.7% lower for the quarter. Across the full company, GM moved roughly 671,000 vehicles in Q3, a 5.5% drop from the prior year, with nine-month volume down 6.4 percent to just over 2 million units.
Gas and hybrid models from parent company General Motors picked up the slack in several cases: Buick’s Envista, Encore GX, plus the Enclave each posted gains, climbing 18.40%, 5.40%, and 3.40%, in that order. Chevrolet’s Corvette and Trailblazer both surged, gaining 28.5% and 51.1% respectively, while GMC’s Canyon and Yukon added 17.90% and 8.0% to their totals.
Third quarter EV sales data from GM traces back to a familiar miscalculation: automakers invested heavily in all-electric lineups only to find demand lagging well behind their own projections, particularly once federal purchase incentives disappeared.
Trump’s broader opposition to EV mandates has made that retreat politically easier, giving automakers cover to lean further into hybrids, which have become the industry’s preferred bridge between gas and full electrification while battery costs and charging infrastructure continue to lag behind expectations.
Analysts will be studying how EV makers like Ferrari N.V. (NYSE: RACE) fare in the U.S. given that they serve a niche market of the ultra-wealthy.
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